International athletes continue influence

When Jerome Leborgne came to GCSU from his native France, he knew that a challenge lied ahead of him—one that he was ready to embrace.

“I picked this school because of academics, and it was a good challenge for me playing number one,” said the junior tennis player, who earned second team All-Peach Belt Conference honors in 2009-10. “This team had a good chance to go to nationals, and I knew I was a good fit right away.”

A glance at the athletic rosters of GCSU will state the obvious — international athletes have a commanding presence. Presently 16 athletes from 10 different nations outside the United States populate Bobcat sports, most of whom have had a significant impact on their respective teams. And the list of players who have gained All-American status and helped lead their teams to strong finishes goes on and on.

“The international athletes have had a tremendous influence on our campus,” Athletic Director Wendell Staton said. “They bring a lot of adversity and they really do impact our lives. Mostly every sport has been impacted.”

Steve Barsby, who coaches both the men’s and women’s tennis teams has seen this impact firsthand, as his teams have been dominated by numerous players from overseas.

“We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had guys come in that were All-Americans,” Barsby said. “They really appreciate the opportunity to play here and to get what they don’t have in their own countries.”

The women’s basketball team recently welcomed Huguette Yanga, a transfer from Santa Fe College in Gainseville, Fla. and originally from Cameroon. Yanga came to a high school in Florida from Cameroon in December 2006, when she was referred by a friend from Cameroon who attended the high school. The junior forward, who goes by the nickname “Yaya” was initially scouted by Bobcat coaches before she knew about the school.

“They came down last November, and I had no clue they were scouting me at the time,” Yanga said. “After (Head Coach Maurice Smith) came down there, we scheduled visits for me to come up here to Milledgeville and see the campus.”

Yanga was immediately impressed with GCSU.

“I felt really comfortable when I got here. It was a nice place and a nice environment for me,” she said. “There was a quiet atmosphere to it. The school is not big, and I don’t like big schools. That really got my attention.”

But there were plenty of adjustments that both Yanga and Leborgne had to make, the biggest of which was the language barrier.

“I had never spoken English before and had spoken French mostly. So it was really hard,” Yanga said. “So when I got there they had to put me in a class for people learning English as a second language. When I came here, I was a junior, and they pulled me back a year to help me adapt to the language and to the environment.”

“I went to college with friends, so I could confer,” Leborgne said. “My English wasn’t that good, and I just had to work on improving it.”

Food habits also proved to be a challenge for Yanga, who was introduced to the world of fast food.

“We don’t have fast food in Cameroon,” she said. “For six months I had stomachaches, and I had to adjust. But now I can cook some of my dishes from Cameroon.”

“Many of the athletes will put on weight when they first get here. It’s not ‘all-you-can-eat’ where they come from, so that’s initially a big change for them,” Barsby said.

Barsby said that recruiting internationally on a consistent basis has been aided by recruitment organizations as well as referrals from former players.

“We call coaches all over the world that we have gradually gotten to know more and more,” Barsby said. “A lot of the kids now will sign up with different recruiting services, and then they will send out their information to different schools and then it becomes you competing against different schools for that player. And then a lot of our foreign players have gone back to coaching at home, and they will give lots of players recommendations.”

Barsby thinks the success in recruiting will continue for the Bobcats.

“We’ve been ranked so high for so long. All these kids have Internet now, and they follow and they know who’s ranked,” he said. “Kids can do the research and find out if you’re telling the truth when you recruit them.”

Yanga and Leborgne both have enjoyed their time, but have slightly different plans for the future.

“I want to go back at home after I finish my studies and teach what I’ve learned to the people over there,” Yanga said.

“I really like it here. I might get a Masters degree here, and I have one more year of eligibility,” Leborgne said. “I want to be a lecturer here or at home, and I would like to stay involved with tennis, even though I probably won’t be a pro.”

But whether or not they stay in the United States when they leave GCSU, Leborgne and Yanga are just two of many international players that have impacted the athletic program.

“We’ve lived and died on international players. We have had some real good American players, and we’ve got some good ones now,” Barsby said. “But the last eight to 12 years, the foreign kids have been what’s kept us in the national picture on a yearly basis.”

Posted by Scotty Thompson on Nov 5 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.